Under the sky, clouds are blackening;
casting pale shadows
these anvils spit their grievances
at a heaving seabed –
full of coral, a desert pasture
and the alluvial night hunters
that gesticulate a reason beyond walls of ice.

Over the stony horizon, obscured by mists
and a sea abeyance
I tread my pilgrimage, a fabulous Salem
paved with blood covenants lies ahead.
The pass goes on –
will it go on for ever? This smiling litany
blazoned with graces like a nosferatu
just out of the cellar.

I have anchored home, over the fire-pots –
a reception of faceless men
squander my juices on a desert altar;
the condemned goat,
my god-given ally
bleaches beneath a passive sun.